“Gods damn that boy!” Jane shouted at the heavens with a frown on her face. It hadn’t been enough that she had been interrupted and completely seen through when they were alone together. No, the boy had even forcefully evacuated her from the comfort of her own home.

“Rgh!” Jane made an annoyed noise as she picked herself up from the dirt of her garden. She had been unceremoniously transported from the lavish setting of her dinner table to the worm-riddled uncleanliness of the outside world.

After brushing the grime off her dress the best she could, a smirk appeared on her face. It was a gamble, belittling and harassing her granddaughter in order to find out even a fragment of what the boy was hiding, and it payed off in spades.

Jane sighed, only hoping that Bella would forgive her after all was said and done, but what power that boy held within him!

The mana she felt him shift upon the activation of his spell was simply amazing, not to mention there hadn’t even been any hint of an activation sequence, truly amazing.

However, Jane had to wonder where he came from, and whether or not his crashing from the stratosphere was someone else’s doing, or even possibly his own.

Walking back into the house, she opened the double doors to the dining room and looked on as her granddaughter was giving a sleeping Leon a lap pillow, her cheeks dyed red the entire time.

Letting out a cough, Bella turned to the source of the noise and her face paled as she gazed on Jane’s disapproving look.

“You know, I didn’t think you’d be so starved for attention that you’d cling onto the first man you ever brought home.” Bella panicked and looked away, which just made Jane smirk.

“I’m sorry, Bella.” The apology from Jane caught Bella off guard and she turned back to see her grandmother bowing in her direction. Bella looked down at Leon, but the interloper showed no sign of waking up any time soon.

“I had a conversation with the boy earlier, and I felt threatened by how much he saw through my plan. In an effort to get even with him by making him reveal some of his hand, I brought you into it and did something awful to you. Please forgive me.” Jane kept her head lowered and endured the harsh silence from her granddaughter.

“Grandma, please raise your head.” Jane did so, and saw something that surprised her on Bella’s face: tiredness. “Grandma, I love you, and never once have I doubted that you want or wanted the best for us both.”

Jane’s face lit up. “Then-”

“That being said,” Bella interrupted, “I’m sick and tired of always being left in the dark. I’m tired of worrying if you are alright, tired of being involved in a scheme I have no control over, and tired of being emotionally and physically abused like this.”

Jane’s eyes widened. “But-”

Bella held her hand up to stop Jane. “I’m just tired of it. Have you ever considered that it might do me better if you just told me instead of keeping it all in. I’m over it grandma, but I don’t know if I can forgive you. I’m not going to bother you about it anymore, just make sure that the next time you scheme, I’m as far away from you as possible.”

Jane’s thoughts went blank, and she left the room looking as if she had just seen a ghost. Hobbling up the stairs, she closed the door to her study and began chucking to herself.

“Silly child, if only you knew…” She looked around at her messy workshop, with books even more expensive and useful than those Bella had complained of before. Maybe… maybe Bella was right. Maybe she needed to fill in others. But in that case…

“She could be used as leverage against me.” Jane thought out loud, before shaking her head. No, she had tried the same thing with Rora, Bella’s mother, and look where she had ended up: dead.

Sighing, Jane started to walk forward and sat at her desk, taking out a swab and plate of glass from a pocket in her dress. Truthfully, she hadn't gone to the dining room solely to apologize to Bella, but rather to swab the chair she had been seated in. If Leo had magic unknown to her, or what she thought was his, he would surely have left particles where he had displaced her, and Jane wasn’t about to let this golden opportunity for leverage slip away.

---

It was morning when I awoke, and Bella was slouched over me, with her thighs under my head and serving as my pillow. I sat up with a start, somehow feeling as if the situation itself was wrong for me to be in. Maybe it had something to do with the feelings that came from yesterday’s flashback, but I had a hunch I was not a single man.

The absence of my weight cause the girl to slump backwards, and woke herself up in the process. Yawning groggily, she blinked her eyes a few times before whispering, “Good morning, Leon. Care to help me today?”

I smiled at Bella, the only thing I could really do considering the fact I couldn't understand a word coming out of her mouth. She pointed in the direction of the forest, and grabbed what I assumed was an imaginary axe and begun to swing it. Sighing, I nodded my head and accepted her offer. It wasn’t as if I had anything better to do with my time, and just like yesterday I might see something that could spark another memory to the surface.